Hi everyone,Audrey is growing like crazy and we have had some issues with ear infections since January.. She's had 8 to be exact. For my wife and I, balancing work and trying to ensure Audrey is happy and healthy has been a challenge at certain points. My mom has been able to drop everything she's doing and come to take care of Audrey while my wife and I attended to some things we couldn't reschedule. We are very lucky she was able to come and help us get Audrey over her ear infection and on the road to recovery.

To to thank my mom and give her a more special one of a kind gift, I built her a keepsake/jewelery box out of sapele and birch hardwood I had in my shop.

I milled the stock in March and cut the miters using my small miter/crosscut sled and taped the corners together to test the squareness with great results. I then put the project aside for awhile as other things with work and coaching sports came up.

Fast forward to June and the box, still taped together, stayed square the entire time with no visible movement in the grain what so ever! This is one of the reasons I really like working with sapele. It's a well behaved wood with exceptional grain patterns. I cut dados in the top and bottom of the box sides for the lid and base panels.

I began thinking of a good contrasting wood that will accentuate the grain pattern of the sapele. I was looking through my veneer pieces and came across a great piece of birch veneer that I decided to go with. The veneer process went really well but for some reason I lost my photos of that process. If you go back through to a few other boxes I've made you'll see that procedure.

I glued the box mitres with the top and bottom birch veneered panels in it and let it dry overnight. Then, the splines were laid out and cut into the corners. I found an old piece of birch sitting in my shop that worked for the splines and the birch liner to allow the box lid to open and close.

After some sanding through the grits up to 320 grit, the grain pattern of the sapele really stood out with tiger stripes the went across the grain vertically. An awesome surprise to see!